Pleated drapery



Odo 1957 .1. M. SOUTHWELL ETAL PLEATED DRAPERY Filed Nov. 12, 1954 L. g 6 M HL 4 T 6. UE F su o & S E 2 MA .n Al.- JO

INVENTORS ijnite States Patent This invention relates to improvements in pleated drapery and, more particularly, pertains to a drapery construction and apparatus to form pleats at the headings of such drapery. Briefly, the invention includes a backing strip, which may be simply stitched to the drapery, and a fastening member for the backing strip, forming pleats in the drapery with a very minimum of time, effort, and expense.

A drapery is a panel of fabric which is used to partially or wholly curtain a window opening or the like. In recent years it has become extremely popular and desirable to provide pleated draperies, to enhance their attractiveness and appearance by causing them to hang with folds in a soft and artistic manner. Pleats usually have been formed in the past by hand stitching wherein the head end of the drapery panel is gathered and pleated and the pleats are securely stitched in place. Pleating is time-consuming and is only best accomplished by the most skillful of seamstresses. A further difilculty with stitched pleats is that when they are washed or cleaned, and are to be ironed, a problem is presented to the person doing the ironing to obtain the desired smoothness of the fabric, so that when the draperies are returned to the hanging rod, or traverse rod, they will be as attractive as when freshly made.

The objectives of our invention include: to provide a leat-forming backing strip which may be installed on the drapery panel by merely sewing the two members in flat abutment, to furnish in such backing strip provision for making pleats, together with a fastening member, without further sewing operations, to provide easy removal of the fastening means so that the backing strip may again lie flat on the panel for cleaning and pressing, and, in general, to devise such means which is both economical in cost of manufacture, and in time required for installation, for such backing strip and fastening member. it is a further object of our invention to provide such pleat-forming devices in a form so that the homemal'er may make her own draperies with a mini mum of skill, time, and expense.

Our invention will be best understood, together with additional objectives and advantages thereof, from a reading of the following description, read with reference to the rawings, in which:

Figure l is a perspective view of a fastening and Figure 2 is a perspective fragmentary view of a backing strip, secured to a drapery panel, showing a specific embodiment of the two components of my pleatforming means;

Figure 3 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view showing the initial step in installing the fastening member in the backing strip and Figure 4 is a similar view showing the second step in the assembly;

Figure 5 is a fragmentary perspective view of the drapery, backing strip, and the fastening member in their final position in the assembly; and

Figures 6 and 7 are enlarged fragmentary cross-secevice tions taken on lines 66 and 7-7, respectively, of Figure 5.

To first described the fastening member, an inverted U-shaped clamp it is formed, preferably of resilient metal wire. The clamp can also be formed of suitable plastic materials. To give a general orientation of the proportions of the clamp, the width of the clamp from which Figure l was drawn, was approximately of an inch and the height was approximately 3% of an inch. These proportions accommodate a large range of drapery sizes and designs but may be varied for broader or narrower backing strips. In general, the height of the clamp is approximately ten times its width for most installations but the proportion may drop to 5 to 1 (height vs. width) where numerous pleats are to be gripped. Preferably the clamp is formed of .072 gauge bright basic wire, plated to resist rust, and it will be understood that the clamp is susceptible of most economical manufacture.

Clamp it comprises legs 12 and 34 which are joined by the bridging bend 11 above and extend downwardly to their lower portions in a common upright plane, the legs are bent laterally a short distance and return in reverse bends, forming a pair of clamp arms 16 and 18, lying in parallel planes at right angles to the plane of legs and 1 5. Lower terminal ends 2% and 22 extend downward in alignment with legs 12 and 14. Arms 16 and 33 in an actual device are preferably /2: of an inch long and terminal ends 20 and 22 are about /2 inch long.

The backing strip 3 3 is best shown in Figure 2 and may comprise sheet of buckram, which in the case of the specimen was approximately four inches in height, the most generally useful width. If a drapery is relatively short or long, the width of strip 3% may have to be varied and clamps in would be sized accordingly.

Other than to cut strip 3%, only two other operations need be executed by the manufacturer. A first operation is the placing of indicia on the exposed face of strip 36) forming a series of vertical fold lines 32, throughout the width of the strip, which are uniformly spaced apart with adjacent fold lines separated a substantial distance. When the strip is folded to bring together a pair of fold lines, as 34, 35, lying at either side of a given fold line, as 38, a pleat is formed, as A l outstanding from the front face of the attached panel 52 a conventional distance. Lines 32 can be marked on strip 39 in any simple way.

A second operation of the manufacturer is to form a series of upper and lower pairs of small openings positioned at every other of the fold lines 32 throughout the length of the strip 3%. The upper openings 58 of the pairs are positioned below and adjacent the upper margin of the strip 39 and the lower openings 52 are positoned oppositely but below upper openings fill, and above adjacent the lower margin of strip 36.

If buckram is used as a backing strip, this material is comparatively stiff so that a fold therein relatively permanent, and fold lines 32 are useful to insure that the initial folds of the backing strips are accurately positioned. However, the openings 5%, 52-, provide orientation of where the fold should occur and hence lines 32 could be deleted. In the model for Figure 2, lines 32 were spaced apart seven-eighths of an inch and openings 5% and 52 occurred on one and three-quarter inch centers, which means that the pleats, as 40, extend outwardly approximately seven-eighths of an inch from the plane of panel :2.

Draperies are hung for considerable periods of time so that there is little occasion to insert and remove clamps 10, hence it is suflicient to form openings 50, 52, merely by punch cutting the buckram, this material having r V 2,809,694; r

considerable strength. While it would be possible to have formed or rimmed eyelets for'the openings, this is ordinarily not necessary and it will be understood that backstrip 39 formed as above described is exceedingly economical and readily manufactured.

Backing strip 36 may be attached to panel 4'2 in the most simple manner merely by stitchings on lines 54 and 56 and at the ends of the strip. To form a finished edge at the top of drapery 42 the sewing at line 54 may be of an overturned or hidden-stitch type. The backing strip described above can be sewn on drapery panel as a machine operation with a minimum of time; and, upon removal of fastener 10, the backing strip and panel lie in fiat abutment for cleaning and pressing, which is of very considerable convenience.

The installation of a clamp it) to secure a formed pleat, is shown in the three steps set forth in Figures 3, 4, and 5. In Figure 3, two top openings as se and 62 have been brought together whereupon the several folds of the pleat have been formed. The terminal ends 26 and 2?. of clamp it) were inserted in said openings and the clamp pressed downward until the return bends of arms 16 and 18 have engaged openings 60 and 62. During this operation the clamp was held normal to the panel. As shown in Figure 4, the clamp was next swung upright from which position it may be slid downwardly until the bridging member 11 comes into close engagement with holes 60 and 62 as shown in Figure 5. This holds the pleat in the forme condition with the clamp arms pinching the lower fold portions of the pieatp It is preferablethat the terminal ends 29; 22, be passed outward from between the backing strip 39 and panel 42 through the lower openings 64 and 66. In this arrangement the several folds of a pleat are clamped above by bend l1 and below between the clamp arms 16 and 18. This clamp pinches the pleats at the bottom of the backing strip as is customary and permits a flaring at the top of the pleats in the manner well known with expensive hand made stitched plea-ts. In the drawing, three folds in a group are illustrated, but it will be apparent that as few as one fold couldbe formed. More than three folds likewise may be accommodated.

The insertion of clamp 16 is very easy and its removal likewise is a simple, trouble-free operation. It is desirable that terminal ends 20, 22, pass out from between backing 30 and panel 4-2 by provision of lower openings 52, to form a positive lock for the lower ends of the pleats. This is particularly desirable in draw draperies 4 where there is lateral force tending to separate the folds of a pleat.- By the steps of assembly outlined above, the drapery is ready to hang when a drapery hook 70 is inserted into the buckram in the area of the pleat. When a pleated drapery is hung as on a traverse rod device, the forces of opening and closing are resisted by clamps 10 and the pleats remain undisturbed. The

drapery in this condition is comparable in appearance to V hand-made professional draperies and has the advantage thereover of simple disengagement of the pleat forming means. The fabrication of the parts in the installing of the fastening members is within the skill of homemakers with little direction as well as saving labor for commercial establishments The way that the various objectives have been met in our pleated drapery, and the various advantages thereof, will be apparent from the above description. Having thus described a specific embodiment of our invention, we wish to cover those modifications thereof which will occur to those skilled in the art and which lie within the proper scope of our invention, as defined in the appended claims.

We claim:

1. Pleat forming means for draperies, comprising: an inverted U-shaped clamp formed of resilient wire, the

height of the clamp being several times its width, the legs 7 of the clamp extending downwardly to their lower ends in a common upright plane, said legs being biased together and each said leg having an integral reverse bend clamp arm extending laterally a short distance above the lower terminal end thereof, said clamp arms being disposed side by side in a common direction at right angles to the upright plane of said legs.

2. The structure according to claim 1 in which each reverse bend clamp arm is open-mouthed in opposition to its direction of lateral extension. 7

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,124,650 Chessler July 26, 1938 2,609,873 Falkenberg Sept. 9, 1952 2,623,582 Handley Dec. 30, 1952 2,638,978 Atkins May 19, 1953 2,646,116 Freeman July 21, 1953 FOREIGN PATENTS 496,061 Canada Sept. 15, 1953 

